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Purpose – This chapter describes an assessment tool that not only contains all of the good qualities of formative assessments, in that it informs teaching and is based on systematic observation of the learner engaged in reading and writing, but also possesses the same good qualities as standardized assessments, in that a student's performance can be compared to other students over time.

Methodology/approach – The chapter begins with an overview of Clay's interactive literacy processing theory. The value of using observation is discussed and a case is made that when observations are conducted in a systematic way, the assessment can possess all the same qualities of a good standardized instrument. Two first-grade students' assessment data from the Observation Survey (OS), one a struggling reader and the other working at low-average level, are shared in order to demonstrate how to interpret the assessment data using Clay's literacy processing theory and how to use those interpretations to inform teaching.

Practical implications – Systematic observation of children engaged in reading, and writing continuous text, allows the teacher to observe behaviors that can be used to infer what a reader is using and doing while reading.

Value – This assessment information can be used to effectively scaffold literacy instruction and a child's reading performance.

Tiered systems may hold particular benefit for students with intensive intervention needs, as this continuum of supports is ideally comprised of evidence-based practices. In this chapter, we explore three intensive interventions: functional assessment-based interventions (FABI), First Step to Success, and Read 180 as they feature a range of practices and programs to meet students' academic, behavioral, and social needs. We define and describe each intervention, including information on essential features necessary for drawing valid inferences: treatment integrity, social validity, as well as student performance. We also provide examples of supporting evidence, featuring treatment-outcome studies documenting intervention effectiveness. We close with clarifications and considerations for meeting the multiple needs of students requiring intensive intervention efforts.

Alternative education settings (AES; i.e., self-contained alternative schools, therapeutic day treatment and residential schools, and juvenile corrections schools) serve youth with complicated and often serious academic and behavioral needs. The use of evidence-based practices (EBPs) and practices with Best Available Evidence are necessary to increase the likelihood of long-term success for these youth. In this chapter, we define three primary categories of AES and review what we know about the characteristics of youth in these schools. Next, we discuss the current emphasis on identifying and implementing EBPs with regard to both academic interventions (i.e., reading and mathematics) and interventions addressing student behavior. In particular, we consider implementation in AES, where there are often high percentages of youth requiring special education services and who have a significant need for EBPs to succeed academically, behaviorally, and in their transition to adulthood. We focus our discussion on: (a) examining approaches to identifying EBPs; (b) providing a brief review of EBPs and Best Available Evidence in the areas of mathematics, reading, and interventions addressing student behavior for youth in AES; (c) delineating key implementation challenges in AES; and (d) providing recommendations for how to facilitate the use of EBPs in AES.

Research into the library as place investigates the role of public library buildings as destinations, physical places where people go for various reasons ranging from making use of the library's resources and services or seeking to fulfill an information or reading need to less easily identified reasons that may include using the library's building as a place to make social or business contacts, to build or reinforce community or political ties, or to create or reinforce a personal identity. This study asks: How are one rural US public library system's newly constructed buildings functioning as places? The answer is derived from answers to sub-questions about adult library users, user, and staff perceptions of library use, and observed use of library facilities. The findings are contextualized using a framework built of theories from human geography, sociology, and information studies.

This case study replicates a mixed-methods case study conducted at the main public libraries in Toronto and Vancouver in the late1990s and first reproduced in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 2006. It tests methods used in large urban settings in a rural, small-town environment. This study also expands on its antecedents by using thematic analysis to determine which conceptualizations of the role of the public library as place are most relevant to the community under investigation.

The study relies on quantitative and qualitative data collected via surveys and interviews of adult library users, interviews of library public service staff members, structured observations of people using the libraries, and analysis of selected administrative documents. The five sets of data are triangulated to answer the research sub-questions.

Thematic analysis grounded in the conceptual framework finds that public realm theory best contextualizes the relationships that develop between library staff members and adult library users over time. The study finds that the libraries serve their communities as informational places and as familiarized locales rather than as third places, and that the libraries facilitate the generation of social capital for their users.

The introductory chapter includes how to design-in good practices in theory, data collection procedures, analysis, and interpretations to avoid these bad practices. Given that bad practices in research are ingrained in the career training of scholars in sub-disciplines of business/management (e.g., through reading articles exhibiting bad practices usually without discussions of the severe weaknesses in these studies and by research courses stressing the use of regression analysis and structural equation modeling), this editorial is likely to have little impact. However, scholars and executives supporting good practices should not lose hope. The relevant literature includes a few brilliant contributions that can serve as beacons for eliminating the current pervasive bad practices and for performing highly competent research.